and led a retired country life, I applied myself to the reading of philosophical authors on purpose to learn those names, and words of art that are used in schools; which at first were so hard to me, that I could not understand them, but was fain to guess at the sense of them by the whole context, and so writ them down, as I found them in those authors; at which my readers did wonder, and thought it impossible that a woman could have so much learning and understanding in terms of art and scholas tical expressions; so that I and my books are like the old apologue mentioned in Æsop, of a father and his son who rid on an ass." Here follows a long narrative of this fable which she applies to herself in these words" The old man seeing he could not please mankind in any manner, and hav ing received so many blemishes and aspersions for the sake of his ass, was at last resolved to drown him when he came to the next bridge. But I am not so passionate to burn my writings for the vari ous humours of mankind, and for their finding fault; since there is nothing in this world, be it the noblest and most commendable action whatsoever, that shall escape blameless. As for my being the true and only authoress of them your lordship knows best; and my attending servants are witness that I have had none but my own thoughts, fancies, and speculations, to assist me; and as soon as I set them down I send them to those that are to trans

cribe them, and fit them for the press; whereof, since there have been several, and amongst them such as only could write a good hand, but neither understood orthography, nor had any learning (I being then in banishment, with your lordship, and not able to maintain learned secretaries) which hath been a great disadvantage to my poor works, and the cause that they have been printed so false and so full of errors; for besides that I want also skill in scholarship and true writing, I did many times not peruse the copies that were transcribed, lest they should disturb my following conceptions, by which neglect, as I said, many errors are slipt into my works, which yet I hope learned and impartial readers will soon rectify and look more upon the sense than carp at words. I have been a student even from my childhood; and since I have been your lordship's wife I have lived for the most part a strict and retired life, as is best known to your lordship; and therefore my censurers cannot know much of me since they have little or no acquaintance with me. 'Tis true I have been a traveller both before and after I was married to your lordship, and sometimes shew myself at your lordship's command in public places or assemblies, but yet I converse with few. Indeed, my lord, I matter not the censures of this age but am rather proud of them; for it shews that my actions are more than ordinary, and, according to the old proverb, It is better to be

is

envied than pitied; for I know well that it is merely out of spite and malice, whereof this present age so full that none can escape them, and they'll make no doubt to stain even your lordship's loyal, noble, and heroic actions, as well as they do mine; though your's have been of war and fighting, mine of contemplating and writing: your's were performed publicly in the field, mine privately in my closet; your's had many thousand eye-witnesses; mine none but my waiting-maids. But the great God, that hitherto bless'd both your grace and me, will I question not, preserve both our fames to afterages. Your grace's honest wife,

and humble servant,

M. NEWCASTLE."

The last portion of this life, which consists of the observations and good things which she had gathered from the conversations of her husband, forms an excellent Ana, and shews that when Lord Orford, in his "Catalogue of Noble Authors," says, that "this stately poetic couple was a picture of foolish nobility," he has given too indiscriminate an opinion. Alas! we must now reverse the

medal!

Many chagrins may corrode the nuptial state of literary men. Females, who prompted by vanity, but not impelled by taste, unite themselves to scholars, must ever complain of neglect. The inexhaustible occupations of a library will only

present to such a most dreary solitude. Such a lady declared of her learned husband, that she was more jealous of his books, than his mistresses. While Glover was composing his "Leonidas," his lady avenged herself for this Homeric inattention to her. It was peculiar to the learned Dacier to be united to a woman, his equal in erudition and his superior in taste. When she wrote in the Album of a German traveller a verse from Sophocles as an apology for her unwillingness to place herself among his learned friends, that "Silence is the female's ornament," it was a remarkable trait of her modesty. The learned Paquier was coupled to a female of a different character, since he tells us in one of his Epigrams that to manage the vociferations of his lady, he was compelled himself to become a vociferator.-" Unfortunate wretch that I am, (he cries;) I who am a lover of universal peace! But to have peace I am obliged ever to be at war."

The great Sir Thomas More was united to a woman of the harshest temper and the most sordid manners. To soften the moroseness of her disposition" he persuaded her to play on the lute, viol, and other instruments every day." Whether it was that she had no ear for music, I know not; but she herself never became harmonious as the instrument she touched. All those ladies may be considered as rather too alert in thought, and too

spirited in action, but a tame cuckoo bird who is always repeating the same tone, must be very fatiguing. The lady of one Samuel Clarke, who was a great compiler of books in 1680, and his name anagrammatised to "suck all cream," alluding to his indefatigable labours in sucking all the cream of every other author, though he gave no cream from himself, is described by her husband as having the most sublime conceptions of his illustrious compilations. This appears by her behaviour. He says, "That she never rose from table without making him a curtesy, nor drank to him without bowing, and that his word was a law to her."

I was much surprised in looking over a correspondence of the times, that in 1590 the Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry writing to the Earl of Shrewsbury on the subject of his living separated from his countess, uses as one of his arguments for their union the following curious one, which surely shews the gross and cynical feeling which the fair sex excited even among the higher classes of society. The language of this good Bishop is neither that of truth, we hope, nor certainly that of religion.

"But some will saye in your Lordship's be halfe that the Countesse is a sharpe and bitter shrewe, and therefore lieke enough to shorten your lief, if shee should kepe yow company. Indeede, my good Lord, I have heard some say so; but if shrewdneese or sharpnesse may be a juste cause of